Sandy Greyson's transportation-for-hire work group, tasked months ago with creating a "level playing field" for taxis and limos and Uber and ride-sharing services and all other comers on four wheels, met for the last time today in the city council's briefing chambers. And one thing was very, very clear at the end of the two-hour meeting: The council is still months away from voting on a new ordinance that will find room on Dallas' streets for everyone giving someone a ride for a fee.

As recently as two weeks ago Greyson had hoped the council would vote on the ordinance before going on summer break, which comes in a mere six weeks. Now, she believes a vote isn't likely until September -- and that may be too optimistic a time line, she tells The Dallas Morning News. It still isn't clear when the ordinance will go to Vonciel Jones Hill's Transportation and Trinity River Project Committee (maybe by month's end, says Greyson, but that's only a maybe) or how many stops it will make there before going to the full council. Then it will go to the full council for a briefing (again, maybe one of several) and only then will it go to a vote.

And there are still many issues to sort through, chief among them: how to calculate fares (by time only, as proposed, or by distance), who has to carry insurance for which driver and for how long (only when they're on the clock, per the proposal, or 24/7) and even what a cab will look like under a proposed law that no longer distinguishes between taxis, limos and the regular ol' cars used by Lyft and UberX. Greyson told the work force, made up of cab owners and limo drivers and Uber and Lyft and Yellow Cab execs, that assistant city attorney John Rogers had "10 pages' worth of notes" following today's meeting.

"This is a very complex issue, and we could continue to discuss it for a very long time, but at some point you feel as though you've got as much as you can get, and then you make a decision and go forward and vote on something," Greyson says. "We deal with a lot of complex issues, and at some point we make a policy decision and move forward. But realistically, this will be decided more in August, September -- and even that may be ambitious."

The ordinance has already undergone significant revisions since it was formally introduced to the work force on April 25. Among the alterations: There is now a defense for services that can't offer citywide service (such as, there are "no available vehicles"). This likely won't sit well with Hill, who has alleged without providing evidence that Uber and Lyft engage in redlining in some southern Dallas neighborhoods. The revision also says operating authorities, or companies, will not have to notify the city if one of their vehicles has been in an accident. And companies can keep using cars regardless of age and mileage; they merely need to be in "good condition."

The full list of proposed changes is below, along with the latest version of the ordinance.

But today's meeting was in some ways a repeat of the April 25 meeting (without the TV cameras, which were all too busy chasing Richard Branson across town). The task force members asked questions, city staff responded and then had their own, and back and forth and back and forth it went until it felt like efforts to pick apart the draft were attempts to make it fall apart before it ever reaches the council.

Irving Holdings president Jack Bewley, who inadvertently kicked off this process when his Yellow Cab tried to get Uber parked last August with the help of Dallas City Manager A.C. Gonzalez, said before the meeting that he doesn't like the ordinance for a very simple reason: It treats taxis and limos as through they're the same thing.

"It's our thought that there should be a distinction between cabs and limos," he told The News. "There always has been. It's going to be confusing to the public. Our other thought is, at all times cabs have always been citywide service -- they have to service the whole city. Now you don't have to service the whole city. We've always been treated like a utility, an extension of DART. Now anybody can say, 'I don't have anybody available.'"

When asked if any or all of this is a deal-breaker, as far as Irving Holdings and its cab companies are concerned, Bewley said, "This is just a process, and we'll have to see how it goes."

Bewley said during the meeting that the ordinance's proposal to charge by time rather than by distance (it's currently a city-regulated $1.80 per mile) also doesn't work for him. He found an ally in Leandre Johns, Dallas Uber's general manager, who said Bewley made some "valid points."

Greyson reminded the task force what she'd said early on: They'd all like some pieces of the proposal and hate other pieces of it. But she appreciated their input about all of it.

One task force member who loves the whole thing is Berhane Alemayoh, the representative from the Association of Limo Owners and Operators of DFW, Inc., who said after the meeting that the draft ordinance is "good for the customers, the city and drivers," who can drive for anyone they like under the proposal.

"It's free market, the American Way," said Alemayoh, who represents some 270 drivers. "That's what we wanted, and what's what we got. If this passes, this would be the greatest thing for Dallas. The days of making deals behind the door are gone. The bureaucracy is gone. So is the monopoly."